2012-04-09 Wise Letting Go Thu, 8/20 6:36PM • 39:12

SUMMARY KEYWORDS letting, swami, norway, people, betterment, fear, life, thought, meditation, bear, rudolf steiner, skis, oslo, hiking, mind, mountain, buddhist, hear, diminishes, place

SPEAKERS Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given at the insight meditation center in Redwood City, California, please visit our website at audio dharma.org.

I thought just before I came to sit here, there were two people visiting from Norway and I started telling them a little story about a time I had Norway. And I thought it might be interesting to finish the story. For their sake, it has to do with Buddhism in Norway. and invite interest some of you just to hear a little bit about my life. I don't think I talked about it that much. I hope I don't. So I'm originally from Norway. I was born there. So my 21st year 21 years old, I went back to live in Norway. And I bedtime I was already interested in Buddhism. So I was interested to see if I could do some Buddhist practice in Norway. And but it doesn't seem to be any but anything I could find, but I had a girlfriend. It's interesting, I don't know if it's interesting but she came from a place outside of a place called hell. So it was my girlfriend from hell. She was very, very nice. And, and she she had gone to school to like, at the coldest place in Norway to play steepen kind of mountains on the kind of way from the coast and a place called close. And when she lived there, she said there was in the local newspaper or magazine, there was an article about a Buddhist hermit and Norwegian Buddhist hermit. And so I somehow had his address, I guess man would have an address used right? to a town and mail, people will find him. And so and so I wrote to him and said, Can I come and see you? And, and he wrote back a few weeks later saying yes, together with a long list of rules. Some of them it seemed kind of odd, but I kind of like just ignored that. And, and so in the middle of January, beginning of January, I think it was I took my cross country skis and I put them on the train, ship them north to this cold place. And then I hitchhiked up there. And I remember actually checking my rubber boots and was so cold because there's no insulation rubber boots, I didn't know that. So standing there in the cold trying to hit check, getting a ride, giving. It's kind of exciting. And then I finally made it to this little town this wood place and went to the train station and got my skis and then walked up the mountain no matter how skied up the mountain but a walk up the mountain. He was at last he has his two little cabins with at the top of the road into the road right at treeline, so up in the mountains. So I made it up there just as it was getting dark. And I knocked on the door and he welcomed me in. And old man his name is a no bear. And he was I forget now but ancient. And, and so we were talking, he invited me and we were talking a little bit. And so I asked him, What kind of Buddhist are you? And he said, I'm not a kind of Buddha. I'm not a kind of Buddhist, I'm a disciple of the Buddha. Oh, this is profound guy. No sectarianism or anything. This is really good, I thought. And then but then he turned and he pointed to a picture on the wall, a photograph of the wall, the Buddha there. And it was a photograph old photograph of what looked like a full fledged Indian Swami with long hair and robes. And his name was actually Swami Swami Acharya, which is not really named Mark titles. And what had happened was that in something like 1917 or something, this seemed to be a pretty well regarded erudite Indian Swami decided for some reason to move to Norway, from India, and this guy ainur met him in Oslo and became his disciple. And at some point after living in Oslo

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 1 for a little while, this Swami decided to move to this cold place up in the mountains. And so in a bear followed him there, and after living there for some years in the 1920s, the swami decided that he was Maitreya Buddha, the next Buddha to be right. So that made ainur Bear disciple of the Buddha. That's why he's a Buddhist. So, that was unusual I thought.

And this, this Swami, he wrote head to head this book they showed me of, he wrote an English of poems that he wrote to the, the beautiful Norwegian milkmaids who will go up and where they call that where they called live up in the mountains in the summer with a with a with a and so he wrote poems to them, about them or something. And, and so they lived their, you know, 20s 30s and then the world war two happened and the Germans invaded Norway. And the swami decided he wanted to do as as the Germans were coming in and coming into that part of Norway. The Swami was worried about all his religious books, he had a lot of books, and so they went and they basement or someplace where they the building and they will The men brick the men into putting bricks up and kind of hide everything behind the wall and enter bear like these to read these spiritual books. And so the last book that went in, I was gonna go in and before that got sealed up, he opened the book randomly. It was a Buddhist book, in the book and that page it opened up it said, when a Buddha is born, when a Buddha is enlightened, and when Buddha dies, the earth shakes in six ways. It's earthquake. So he so he closed up the book, put it in, and they sealed up the wall. So the Nazis couldn't get these books. Well, then, at some point during the war, the swami decided he had to do something to end the war. So I guess, I don't know if this is the, you know, the usual thing for Swamis. But he decided to fast and He fasted for a long time until at some point he he fell into a coma. And in a bear said, my teacher is not going to die. Not gonna pass on without coming back and saying some last words. So I wouldn't be prepared for that. So he went down to town to make arrangements to get some salad because it's hard to get fresh salad I guess it comes with salad from someplace and corn ham or something. And I think it was whiskey or something he said for the swami and, and so also hard to get, I guess during the war. And so he went down down the mountain to the valley below And back then everyone had these. So he was gonna call upon him, the professor and told him he knew, and I guess crank phone was was gonna, and everyone had the same phone line, you would crank up and call the operator and the operator would connect you. So he got on the phone. And when I got on the phone, the earth started to shake. And there were all these explosions and there's all these people At the same time on the phone line celebrating the end of the war, and the earth shaking was there blowing up the minds that the Germans left behind. So the earth shook. Right? So then he said, then I knew that the swami had died. My teacher had passed on, because that's what happens, right? Buddhists die in short checks. And so I said, he said something passed on to me. So did he die? He said, Well, his body continued for a few more days. But he had tests on I guess so that's probably the probably you've never heard of that explanation for the end of World War Two. And right there in the palace, and so I lived with him for two weeks. And it was a beautiful place to be I think we all remember really good weather those two weeks, and then every day I would go take my cross country skis and go up. cross country skiing above tree lines, beautiful virgin snow high above, far from anybody. It was so beautiful. And then I come back and I'd make food and spend the afternoon with him. And we would talk and he would mostly I was interested in stories he had to tell of the old days. And he was in, like, in 19 and a when it was, I think 15 I don't know when he met Kaiser William, when has ability sailed into Oslo and went to a party so Kaiser billing, I mean, like, That's old guy. And, and then he 1917 he was in he went to hear Krishna Murthy. Krishna Murthy was a young man, I guess, when he came to Oslo. And he also heard a lecture by Rudolf Steiner. So some of you might know Rudolf Steiner, who's a German anthroposophical kind of mystic Christian kind of guy. And, and one of the memorable moments of that, in telling them seeing Krishna

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 2 Rudolf Steiner he See, he kind of showed me kind of acted it out you said Rudolf Steiner got up on stage and stood at the very edge of the stage and raised up his hands wide like stretched out wide is that threshold of death so now you've gotten a transmission the Rudolf Steiner transmission, third head, or secondhand third hand right? from 1917. So that's pretty close. So I've lived there for two weeks with him and then I received a phone call from my mother that she was come back to Norway unexpectedly. And so I decided to go to this you know, visitor, and so I told her Barry I was going to see my mother gonna leave and he shook his head and said, Oh, it's always the women think he had hope he had hopes for me that I would stay in Ghana. Help him with things. So that's my story of finding Buddhism in Norway. So I hope that was okay to tell you a story. And if it's not, then maybe the Dharma talk will help. So what I'd like to talk about is letting go. And sooner or later, everybody has to learn how to let go. And you sooner or later everything that you have everything that you know, everything everyone you love, everything that you cherish will either leave you or you will leave it and you'll let go. You'll either let go willingly, or it'll be wrenched out of your hands. Because it's gonna all going to go everything sooner or later. And so, sooner or later, anybody who's going to live a wise mature life and be somewhat at peace with life is going to have to learn how to let go. And not only learn how to let go, but how to let go wisely, maybe that's the most important point of today's talk is the idea of letting go wisely. The idea that we all have to let go, it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to rush out now and let go of everything. But you can have if you want to live gracefully or live peacefully, you're gonna have to learn the skill of letting go. And I think most people when they I don't know if it's true for most people, but is my assumption is that most people, when they hear about the teachings of letting go or disturbed by it, don't like it. Because letting go means losing something which is important or precious, or it might mean that it's we're diminished by it. There's less of something that's important for us. We need to have, or some people don't trust the idea of letting go because sometimes letting go is done in the wrong way in stupid ways even. And people let go of the wrong things. But but still it doesn't. So there's reasons not to let go. Sometimes. There's reasons to avoid certain kinds of letting go. But even so everyone has to learn to let go. If you don't learn it, chances are you'll suffer. You suffer a lot, Rob Bromley and so and we're asked in this life sooner or later to let go of things which ideally we would never have to let go of. Ideally, we would keep ideally they would be unchanging. And they could be relationships. People die. People leave people move my poor, nine year old son, his best friends who live a couple houses away or might be moving far away. And it's, you know, when there's news when the news spread It was really hard for all these little kids, what? They loved each other so much. And maybe some of you, you know, as kids, your best friend left or you moved or something. And you know, you can go up and go through the list of things that are nice to have, but are taking away your health, nice to have health. We want people to be healthier when people take care of their health. But is there a guarantee? I'm of the age now that my peers when we meet together, guess when we talk about? We talk about the things that are going on in our body to help you know, it seems like I don't know. It's true for those of you who are my age or older who go through a phase like this. Do you get over it. This is stop.

Get through that tired that phase. You don't do that when you're in the 50s and your 60s, you Nothing's stopping to stabilize and what? The Oregon concert organ concert. So and then you die. So some people feel like letting go is a diminishment. But the wise letting go and this is where the art of letting go is useful to learn is learning how letting go enhances us how letting go is for our betterment, how letting go is actually brings actually joy. And one of the things I've learned in my life is that if I let go, which I have to do a lot in my life. If I let go in if I don't feel some kind of joy in letting go that I'm in trouble. That chances are it's going to come back and bite me because chances are that not so far away. There might be some resentment or grumpiness or Some kind of discomfort or despair or something around what I've let go of. And so the trick of the art is how to not whether you like or don't like to let go or whether you believe in letting go or not believing and letting go. I don't think those are interesting questions. I think the question is interesting question is, how can we approach letting go? How can we

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 3 let go in such a way that it is for the betterment of ourselves and for others? How can we see benefit from it? So one of the So, one of the really good places to let go to learn to let go is not in the big things of sickness, old age and death and people dying and all this, but rather is letting go of your compulsive thinking. And, and hopefully with your compulsive thinking you can see that component that it's for your betterment to not be compulsively addictively thinking and ruminating that same thing over and over again, to sit down and be able to sit down and meditate and not have your thoughts be in charge, and just be driven and driven, driven to think the same thing over and over and over again, but rather to be able to let it go, let it drift away, let it diminish, let it settle down, but the mind Calm down, so that the mind can experience some peace, some ease, some clarity, some openness, some relaxation. And so to see that letting go of compulsive thinking, is for betterment. It's where it improves us. As a result, maybe then maybe we were then willing to engage in the process of letting go. We can we can cling pretty hard to Do things which are not good for us. So there, it's easy to see this to our betterment. So people cling to addictive behavior. And so usually they cling to it because they think it's going to provide something good. But often there's a confusion between pleasure and happiness. And so they have a sense that, oh, if I can let go of this addictive behavior, then something else might be able to happen, something that can't happen if I keep you know, pursuing the addiction. So it takes sometimes a lot of trust, a lot of support and a lot of courage to let go of some things that were attached to. But hopefully we can do that. Some people are afraid of letting go the teachings of letting go because they think that if they let go the teach them letting go means that they're supposed to be passive post to just accept everything the way it is, and not kind of not care about things just kind of like whatever but People just roll over them. Letting Go, sometimes it's to let go of how we limit ourselves. How we limit our courage, for example. And sometimes when we let go of is we let go of our shyness, or our embarrassment, or our fear, and to be able to let go of fear so that we can do difficult things, it's a very useful thing to do. Sometimes we have to stand up against people, and we have to go and have difficult conversations. And, and it's not letting go is not a matter of just letting go of, Oh, it's okay. Everything is fine. It's cool, you know, whatever you did, and I'll be okay with that. Just let go. That's not a wise way of letting go. What might what you might need to do let go of is let go of your fear to go up into the person and say you can't do that anymore. You know, we'd have to have a discussion about what's happening here. And it can take a lot of courage or take a lot of letting go to overcome this. fear that keeps us from having certain conversations that we sometimes people will people avoid conversations for a lifetime for decades, because it's so threatening or frightening to do it. So it has some sense that yes, it's good to let go of fear and not be limited by it. It's good to let go of shyness and not be limited by it is a useful kind of reflection. Letting Go is not only about, you know, letting go of things that are precious and valuable to us. But it's also letting go the way we're trapped by the self limiting behavior, self limiting thoughts, behavior, our thoughts and ideas and feelings that we have. The So, so, back to meditation, so to learn to let go in meditation, let go of compulsive thinking, and to learn what it feels like in the mind and the heart and the body, to have let go to have the peace so the relaxation of the openness And to experience that to such a degree, that the there's a lightning, there's a lifting, there's a kind of a joy or a delight that can arise, to see that correlation to see that letting go the claim the holding the attachments in the mind, and see that doing that meditation leads to a sense of well being teaches us a lesson and teaches us a lesson that maybe it's possible to do that outside of meditation.

Maybe it's possible to look when or you know, when our body parts stop functioning the way that they were in their 20s. And things clearly limited. Clearly we can't do the things we were used to doing. We can go hiking anymore, we can do all kinds of things. You know, you could be bitter, could be angry, could be afraid of more what's coming. Or you can look at the situation say now here's here's an opportunity to let go What How can I like what's a wise way of letting go now given that my knees won't

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 4 hold me up anymore? What's a what's a wide what was a wise way to do it? So it brings me some even some lightness and joy, some ease. Is it possible? Is it valuable to do that? Or is it more valuable to hold on to all the ideas and concepts anticipations fears, resentments, angers about what we're losing. There can be a lot of ego a lot of self concept that operates around you now, you know, I don't want to let go of is so important for me to be the person who's fit. It's so important for me to be self sufficient person. It's so important for me to be seen a certain way. It's so important for me to have the pleasure that I'm used to having and all these ideas. And generally what happens is people holding on to holding on to their ideas about all these things. Rather than the actual like going for a walk. And so if in meditation we learn to let go of the compulsive thinking, then perhaps we can let go of that compulsive thinking outside of meditation as well. And so then becomes available as there can be that lightning of the mind, the lighting of the mind, the easing of the mind, even though situations as well. It doesn't mean that then we kind of just have to accept our bad knees and never go to the doctor. Please go to the doctor, to you know, do what you have to do to take care of yourself. But you know, you can't, doctors can't fix everything. And so at what point, go to the doctor and Let go. Let go of the way that you we cling and tight and hold around things. be someone who gets old and decrepit happily the I talked recently with a man who said that, you know, when the his quality of his life diminishes a certain point, he's going to take his life, he doesn't want to go beyond a certain point. And I told them all I had a number of conversations this person this in the on the on the, on the conversation I've had, I said, Oh, I know someone who's gone through very much thing you've gone to going through but further ahead further further ahead of you in it, and is quite life is quite limited. But he's really happy. And I said to him, you know, it's possible that when you come to that point in your life, that you'll be happy. Don't assume you're going to be unhappy, because then it might become a self fulfilling prophecy. If you live in that world of your thoughts and ideas. Oh, this is gonna be terrible when it happens. Oh, it is terrible, but it's happening. But maybe if he's has an open mind to the situation, maybe it's possible to experience happiness even or joy. If he lets go, what does he have to let go? of? What? Deep? What's really deep things that we have to let go of? And I think this man that I know, is not it's not an easy task for him to let go of the years and years of challenges of his life that have accumulated in his thoughts and his memories of it. But is it possible to let go, what does it mean to let go? How do we let go, some people don't want to let go. Some people, for example, have to let go of some people hold on really tight to their memories. Some people hold on really tight to their feelings and their emotions, to their sense of self. They have sometimes sometimes people are very stubborn. Sometimes there's a lot of pride. Sometimes there's a lot of fear of the alternative, and some people would rather die, proud and misery. Then then happy and what's the opposite? What's it What's the good opposite of pride? humility humble. Yeah, that good good opposite and the other candidates my candidate is just be peaceful, be peaceful. So, some people are unwilling to let go because of the you know they're there they they grip is so tight, but perhaps the other side of releasing the other side of letting go of opening up of putting down, perhaps there is there can be peace, happiness and well being. Because a lot of that depends not on some of that depends and so certainly the deep spiritual happiness depends on having let go of the compulsions in the mind the addictions in the mind so if the mind has let go, maybe doesn't matter so much how the body is. The other thing that I've taught before is the idea that of letting go has two sides. There's the letting go of something, which is what most people think about when they think about letting go. And then there's letting go into something. And I think that is this concept of letting go into. So the analogy I give is that if you can hold on to the diving board, you can even hang on to it. Hold on for dear life hanging in the end of the diving board and I can let go. But if you let go of the diving board, then you let go into the pool. And if it's a hot day that feels really good to fall and like go and fall into the pool. So to let go and be wise about it to look at how for your betterment it's useful to consider what in letting go What can I let

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 5 go into. So letting go is not only about what is let go of, but also what's gained in the process. And so, letting go into peace, letting go into calm, letting go into courage, letting go into the right action that has to be done, letting go into joy, letting go into some kind of more settled place, letting go into the present moment more fully. There's many things we can let go into. Sometimes, you know, interpersonally, there can be a lot of clinging that inhibits intimacy. And so perhaps letting go of certain kind of clinging allows for let go into intimacy into a closer connection or empathy with someone else. So

So the challenge that I like to offer all of you is that one way to get to let go wisely is to do your homework around letting go Only you can do that. And the homework would be to consider to actively consider and reflect. How is it that letting go can be done? So it betters you and enhances your life rather than diminishes it? What's what, in what ways? Can it better you? What can you focus on? What can you let go into? So that in letting go, you benefit from letting go. So, you know, if my knees give out and I can't hike anymore, I might have to let go of being able to hike. But if I only focus on all I let go of that, then I maybe I'm shortchanging myself a little bit. Perhaps what I can reflect on also is I have to let go of the hiking in letting go of that. What can I let go into and maybe it's something as simple as I can let go of the into the peace, of not obsessing about what it means to go hiking, maybe you know, something like that. But there might be more clear things you can let go into what's the what's the good opportunities that are available to you in doing letting go? So those are my thoughts. And, and I offer those thoughts with a hope that you'll do that homework, if you will reflect and think about it, because I don't think that it's so useful for someone like me just to come and tell you, you know, this is why it's good to let go or how it's to be done. I think it's something each person has to learn themselves. So we have about 10 minutes. And so I welcome any right any of you to ask any questions about that or give some testimonials, about letting go be great to have a good testimonial. If there are people who would like go I don't know if any of you have gotten around to that yet.

It's a quasi testimonial because today I spent a lot of time talking with a friend to who has to give up driving and lives in Portland. And he did he let go into such happiness, moved into an apartment downtown and learn to take the tram and the public transportation and was really quite gleeful about it. And I thought that was I thought of that when you were talking, because he was quite pleased with himself.

But he was reluctant at first.

Oh, yeah. He loves to drive.

Thank Great. Thank you.

I thought you were going to speak. I thought you were going to say something. You must have some experience with this topic.

I'm afraid I have to say something that's not the testimony but is a deep concern of mine about a dear person that I'm married who is not into any kind of might say self growth, meditative space. ritual, just a wonderful person who doesn't go there. I can't even talk philosophy. So, but it's time in her life, I think, to let go. And the two big things she has to let go, to be happy to be peaceful, is letting go of having lived in a wonderful place and Emerald hills, a house that we built ourselves for 23 years. And now she lives in the flats of Redwood City. And she's not letting go and then a double mastectomy, very unfortunate. And now she has to let go of she thought she could have implants and stuff that didn't work out. So now she has to let go of not looking like other women and like she looked over. So I'm in a

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 6 place of saying, you know, I wish I could, for example, play this CD for her, say, Honey, you know, I love you listen to this, but I don't think that's going to work. Now please be very careful with that.

Oh, I know so so I, there might be some, something useful. I could say could theoretically someone could say to you that would help your wife or help the situation with what to you know, think comes to my mind, the first thing would be not to address that issue. But since you're here to add to consider, what do you need to let go of in a wise way and what's the wise letting go for you in this situation? And occasionally, we have to let go of other people's you know, interfering or being involved other people's choices and let go and allow them their autonomy to make sometimes poor choices, and sin. The question is, what's the advantage of that? I think I just made up the advantage that she would be more peaceful and happy if she'd let it go. But I made that up, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it appears to me. And but if you let go, what's the advantage to you? Or the whole situation? If you let go of trying to change her?

Then I have to continue to witness what I think is her being unhappy, and then say, well, that's the way it is. It could be painful. But is it really but maybe that's required of you? And if that's required of you, how do you do it in such a way that, that it's not just a downer for you? What do you have to let go of, so that in the language of this talk, it's for your betterment in a sense, thank you. That's my homework. And it's unfortunate if you have to do that homework, but you might have to do it.

I'm Tom

Thank you that was really apropos. It's my first time doing the yoga earlier, a friend of mine, a little closer friend of mine suggested that I stay for the meditation and listening. When I was 32, my wife died. When my youngest son was born, I had three little boys under 10 and my whole life just changed. And I was really miserable for quite some time. Yeah, I got over it. My life has been absolutely wonderful. I'm very close to my boys. I've gotten involved with helping people who've gone through similar situations and my life turned out you know, I had a lot of other changes, career changes, I could no longer travel for business. Everything is worked out incredibly well. Better than I ever imagined. I think it was just from burning to let go. Anyway, thanks.

So so if I may ask you, yes. So it sounds like there was a lot of huge upheaval change in your life, you had to let go of a lot of life that you were used to that you knew of the things that you let go of other things that changed here. What can you know, you don't have to give an example of I'm curious of an example of, of a situation where you're most conscious about letting go of something. And in letting go you saw that things got better.

Something that comes to mind was my career and losing my wife and being a single parent and having a huge fear around. I had a 12 year old baby when she died and I was changing diapers and dealing with daycare and everything by myself. And I was also realizing that I was not gonna have a career that I had had for a lot of years. And so I had financial insecurity or That. I don't know what happened, I just let go of it. And the fear went away. I just believed that something would come along. I was actually on

This transcript is machine generated and may contain errors Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License audiodharma.org 7 unemployment for a little while. And when the unemployment ran out, something else came along that was 10 times better than what I was doing. You know, I had my own hours financially, it was a whole lot better, I had a lot more flexibility.

It was just and I think it really happened when I just let go and let go of the fear and just was open to whatever was going to replace it. And I didn't really I had an idea, but I really didn't know. I was just open to looking and not hanging on to what I had. So great. Thank you, Tom. Okay, so it's nine o'clock. So we should let go. If you have more if you want to bring up something more y'all stay up here. So thank you all very much.

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